Bosnian Peace Negotiations Coming To U.S. After Weeks of Talks Failed

The Bosnian peace talks are moving to Washington this weekend, in a U.S.
effort to forge a union of Croats and Muslims that could then press for a
settlement with the Serbs in all of Bosnia.

A senior State Department official said the United States issued the
invitation to the Bosnian government and the Croats after weeks of talks in
Croatia, Germany and elsewhere in Europe failed to bridge differences
between the two warring sides.

But the Croats and Muslims Wednesday agreed to a cease-fire that goes
into effect Friday, and the United States decided to take over the
negotiations aimed at forging a political alliance.

The talks, which could begin as early as Saturday, will continue for two
or three days, the official said. "Then we'll see where we go from there."

A promising sendoff came from Zagreb, where Croatian President Franjo
Tudjman, acknowledging Western pressure, gave his blessing to a merger of
Bosnia's Muslims and Croats, and suggested a union with Croatia.

Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic, who is visiting in Washington
and met for the second time Thursday with Secretary of State Warren
Christopher, agreed to remain here for the talks. The Croats will be
represented by Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic and one of the Bosnian
Croat leaders, Kresimir Zubak.

Charles Redman, special envoy to the former Yugoslavia, who has been
involved in the talks in Europe, is to lead the American team, but the
official said Christopher and other top policy-makers may meet with the
Croat and Bosnian participants.

The United States, the official said, "is trying to push the process to
a conclusion as rapidly as possible," working against time before the
momentum and optimism that followed the success of the NATO ultimatum at
Sarajevo is dissipated.

The proposal on the table, which has been discussed on and off for
months, provides for a union of the Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats
inside Bosnia into "some sort of entity," the structure of which is the
subject of the negotiations.

The Bosnian Croats, with help from Croatia, were once allies of the
mostly Muslim Bosnian government against the Bosnian Serbs, who made war on
the Muslims with aid from the Serbs in Belgrade. But when the Serbs seemed
to be winning the war, the Croats attacked the Muslims to grab their chunk
of the country.

The Croats fear the Serbs more than they fear the Muslims. And
periodically, the Muslims and Croats have been allied against the Serbs.
Now, the United States hopes it can bring the two sides together in a more
lasting political alliance.

The hope is that a new Croat-Muslim union in Bosnia, said the official,
who briefed reporters on condition he remain anonymous, could become strong
enough to deal with the Bosnian Serbs and then win the concessions from
them necessary to make peace. The result would presumably be the
establishment of two geographical entities - one Croat-Muslim, the other
Serb.

But Tudjman seemed to go one step further. In his announcement on
Croatian television, he accepted a confederation with Bosnia's Muslims.

"The international community thinks and is persuading us that the
Croatian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina should live together in a community
with the Muslims," Tudjman said. "The outcome of this could be federation
of Muslims and Croats within Bosnia-Herzegovina and confederation of (that
entity) with ... Croatia. This is acceptable to us."

While the United States took the lead in the negotiations and pledged
support for the Bosnian government, the Germans, with longtime ties to the
Croats, were enlisted to encourage Zagreb to come to a settlement with the
Muslims. And eventually, said the official, the United States expects that
Russia, traditionally friend of the Serbs, will pressure the Bosnian Serbs
as well as Belgrade to withdraw from at least some of the territory they
took from the Muslims.

Eventually, he said, the union, however it is organized, could combine
in a confederation with Croatia to form a "viable, durable state,"
something Tudjman suggested earlier in the day. He added that a Bosnian
Croat-Muslim entity alongside a Bosnian Serb entity would constitute a
two-way division of the country, rather than the three-way partition
envisioned by the European plan, which has been put aside for the moment.